A bike for Abruzzo National Park by Alessio D'Onofrio

Wow! 2010 has been off to a busy start. I was hoping to get my review of the Batavus BUB urban bike posted before the end of the year, but I just can’t seem to find the time to sit down and write a few paragraphs. It is on my to do list for the coming week though, so look for that review soon.

Today, I want to quickly share a project from Italian architect and designer, Alessio D'Onofrio. Alessio worked on a thesis project titled "Inter-modal system aimed to the conscious and assisted fruition National Park of Abruzzo” as an architecture student at the University G. D’Annunzio Chieti-Pescara in 2006. He focused on a both a system and a product (the bicycle) to create a sustainable way for tourists to visit the Abruzzo National Park. Below you can read Alessio’s abstract describing his project, and see a few of the images from his slideshow presentation:

Introduction

The reflections about the theme of environment, suggested in this paper, come from the consideration that the Italian territory shows a large environmental estate, which has been scarcely developed, while the demand for eco-tourism has been increasing more and more.

The landscape of protected areas between development and defense

Italy owns an extraordinary natural protected estate, which needs to be defended and made accessible and comfortable to be lived. In order to love and defend the environment, it is necessary that use, fruition and preservation of our environmental heritage, become integral part of the estimation developing activity. All this requires both the promotion of environment resources knowledge and an action of design ethically responsible.

Strategy orientation and guidelines

In this perspective, the protected areas of parks, are the ideal scenery to make tests on new patterns of sustainable intervention without separating protection from development. Protected areas are surely required to defend the most sensitive and precious eco-systems due to biodiversity, but they are also an extraordinary instrument for the sustainable development in several strategy-sections like tourism, agricultural food production, craftsmanship and management of natural and environmental goods.

The sustainable solution

On the basis of these methods guidelines, the theme of sustainable mobility has been afforded in protected mountain areas. The application regards a project of an inter-modal System meant for tourist fruition in the National Park of Abruzzo.

The National Park of Abruzzo

The National Park of Abruzzo has been chosen as “sensitive landscape” for the particular
combination between spontaneous nature and landscape created by man on a land inhabited since long time ago, shaped and transformed by traditional culture and thousand year old civilizations (Lepore, 2001). In these last years, the problems connected to eco-development have been raised. That is, the need to harmonize the preservation and the urgent requirements by man of natural resources, between the maintenance of dynamic balance referred to eco-system structures and the necessity of socio-economic development of local population. In particular, the most relevant problem concerns the alteration of the environmental context due to the effect of man's pressure submitted to a tourist-receptive system showing a high level of non-sustainability: increase of vehicle mobility inside the Park, surface, acoustic and air pollution, overall life quality decrease of the residents.

THE SERVICE:

The inter-modal system for the conscious and assisted fruition of the National Park of Abruzzo

Inside a general pattern of strategy guidelines established by the Park Corporation, the sustainable solution which has been found responds to question on how it may be possible to manage and enhance the activities of tourist fruition in the Park, respecting the delicate environment balances. The proposal consists of an inter-modal System for the conscious and assisted fruition of the Park. The solution has been suggested as a service which provides information, assistance, minimal products and equipments for those who want to visit the Park by means of a resource management advanced service entrusted to the Park Corporation.

The system is a network spread all over the area of the Park and it is mainly based on different and interrelated transport modalities characterized by lighter ecological imprints as the demand of tourist fruition is shifted from the populated areas easier to be reached, to places of higher nature value and difficult to be reached (vehicle + electric shuttle + bike + walk).

The service, in fact, includes several strategic points of inter-modal exchange that play also a role of support for the different leisure, sport, didactic and scientific activities. In these points the service offers information, assistance, maintenance, small equipments and products useful for the fruition of the Park. The service guarantees also a good system for collecting rubbish separately. Further, through satellite technology, the interaction between the service manager and the users of the Park is constantly and continuously updated. The service also requires the use of different tools like: digital media interfaces for first aid emergency, orientation and geographical, botanical, geological and zoological information, able to record texts as well as moving and fixed images, signs, furniture products and the small, light and flexible receptive structures spread on the territory of the Park in order to equip picnic areas as well as those meant for didactic, scientific and sport activities, electric bikes for going along the routes of the Park together with specialized supporting Kit to be used for the activities.

THE BICYCLE:

The product concept: the bike of the Park

The analysis of the service map has allowed to get its key-product: the “ Bike of the Park”. It consists of a vehicle made of two wheels, alternative to the traditional motorized mean of transport, meant for a tourist who feels responsible of his role searching in protected areas a fruition experience rich in content at social, cultural and environmental level. The context features, the strategy orientation of the Park Corporation, the targets and the list of service specific requirements have defined the project brief. The concept comes from the careful management of all the inputs coming from disciplines (ergonomics, environment requirements, material technology) where it is absolutely necessary to obtain from, to develop an object to be used according to the patterns of design.

The high quality formal product innovation consists of: experimental employment of carbon fiber, connection to the satellite information system, versatility (leisure activities, competition, transport of things), use adjustability, assisted cycling pace, equipment and service tools as part of the frame (universal case -kits for emergency, orientation and first aid, leisure, scientific, didactic activities exc.), a flexible bag for litter to be inserted under the saddle, joint trailer outfits, eco-compatibility according to the criteria of Life Cycle Design.